I have told already how I travelled with Sir Charles Dilke from London to Paris, and of our conversation on the way and of the impression left on me by it that he would "sell Egypt for his Commercial Treaty"; and this is precisely what in fact had happened. The dates as far as I can fix them were these: On the 15th of November St. Hilaire had gone out of office, and had been succeeded by Gambetta, who found himself faced with a general Mohammedan revolt against the French Government in Tunis and Algeria. He was alarmed at the Pan-Islamic character it was taking, and attributed it largely to the Sultan Abdul Hamid's propaganda, and he thought he saw the same influence at work in the National movement in Egypt, as well as the intrigues of Ismaïl, Halim, and others. France had been traditionally hostile to the sovereign claims of the Porte in North Africa, and Gambetta came into office determined to thwart and deal with them by vigorous measures. He was besides, through his Jewish origin, closely connected with thehaute financeof the Paris Bourse, and was intimate with the Rothschilds and other capitalists, who had their millions invested in Egyptian Bonds. Nubar Pasha and Rivers Wilson were then both living at Paris, and his close friends and advisers in regard to Egyptian matters, and it was from them that he took his view of the situation.
He had, therefore, not been more than a few days in office before he entered into communication with our Foreign Office, with the object of getting England to join him in vigorous action against the National movement, as a crusade of civilization and a support to the established order at Cairo of Financial things. In London at the same time there was a strong desire to get the Commercial Treaty, which was about to expire, renewed with France as speedily as possible, and advantage was taken at the Foreign Office of Sir Charles Dilke's personal intimacy with the new French Premier to get the negotiation for it finished. A commission for this purpose, of which Dilke and Wilson were the two English members, had been sitting at Paris since the month of May, and so far without result. Dilke's visit to Paris was in connection with both matters, and was resolved on within a week of Gambetta's accession to power.Reference to newspapers of that date, November 1881, will show that the negotiations between the two Governments about the Commercial Treaty were just then in a highly critical state, and it was even reported that they had been broken off. Dilke's presence, however, gave them new life, or at least prevented their demise. Between the 22nd of November and the 15th of December he passed to and fro between the two capitals; and at the latter date we find Gambetta (Blue Book Egypt 5, 1882, page 21) approaching Lord Lyons, our Ambassador at Paris, with a proposal to take common action in Egypt. He considers it to be "extremely important to strengthen the authority of Tewfik Pasha; every endeavour should be made to inspire him with confidence in the support of France and England, and to infuse into him firmness and energy. The adherents of Ismaïl and Halim and the Egyptians generally should be made to understand that France and England would not acquiesce in his being deposed.... It would be advisable to cut short the intrigues of Constantinople," etc. This language is communicated by Lord Lyons to the Foreign Office, and on the 19th Lord Granville "agrees in thinking that the time has come when the two Governments should consider what course had better be adopted," etc. Thus encouraged, Gambetta on the 24th proposes to take occasion of the meeting of the Egyptian Notables to make "a distinct manifestation of union between France and England so as to strengthen the position of Tewfik Pasha and discourage the promoters of disorder." The Egyptian Chamber meets on the 26th, and on the 28th Dilke, who has returned the day before to Paris, has a long conversation with Gambetta about the Treaty of Commerce ("Times"), while on precisely the same day Lord Granville agrees to give "assurance to Tewfik Pasha of the sympathy and support of France and England, and to encourage His Highness to maintain and assert his proper authority."
This identity of date alone suffices to fix the connection between the two negotiations, and shows the precise moment at which the fatal agreement was come to, and that my communication of the National Program to Gladstone, which was posted on the 20th, must have been just too late to prevent the disaster. Letters then took a week to reach London, and Gladstone was away for the Christmas holidays, and cannot havehad time, however much he may have been inclined to do so, to forward it on to the Foreign Office. Our Government thus committed to Gambetta's policy, Gambetta on the 31st (Blue Book Egypt 5, 1882) presents to Lyons the draft, drawn up with his own hand, of the Joint Note to be despatched to Cairo in the sense of his previous communication of the 24th—and, be it noted, on the same day negotiations for a renewal of the Commercial Treaty are announced as formally renewed. On the 1st of January the Paris correspondent of the "Times" sends a précis of the Joint Note to London, explaining that he only now forwards it, having been instructed by M. Gambetta only to divulge it "at the proper moment." This is understood to mean the final success of Dilke's commercial mission, and the following day, 2nd January, he returns to London. I trace, nevertheless, the influence of my appeal to Gladstone in the delay of five days, still made by Granville before he unwillingly signs the Note, and the reservation he stipulates for on the part of Her Majesty's Government that "Her Majesty's Government must not be considered as committing themselves thereby to any particular mode of action," a postscript typical of Granville's character, and, as I think too, of a conflict in ideas, afterwards very noticeable, between the Foreign Office, pushed on by Dilke, and Gladstone as Prime Minister.
Such is the evidence which, intelligently read, can be gathered from the published documents of the day. I have, however, a letter from Sir Rivers Wilson dated a few days later, 13th January, in answer to one of mine, which explains in a few words the whole situation. "I am above all pleased," he writes, "at the interest you are taking in Egyptian politics. You confirm what I believe to be the case in two particulars at least, viz., that the soldiers express the feeling of the population, and that Tewfik has been working with the Sultan. As regards the latter circumstance I must say there is nothing surprising in it. Six weeks ago Gambetta said to me, 'Le Khedive est aux genoux du Sultan.' But the reason is plain. Tewfik is weak and cowardly. His army is against him. The Harems hate him. He found no support there where he naturally might have looked for it, viz., at the hands of the English and French Governments, and so he turned to the only quarter where sympathy and perhaps material assistance were forthcoming. Itwas to remedy this state of things that the idea of the Joint Declaration was conceived, whatever gloss or subsequent explanation may be now put forward, and I shall be disappointed if it does not produce the desired effect and cause the officers, Ulemas, and Notables to understand that renewed disturbance means armed intervention in Europe. Our Government may not like it, but they are bound now by formal engagement to France and cannot withdraw."
This letter, coming from Wilson at Paris, holding the official position there he did, and being, as he was, on intimate terms both with Dilke and Gambetta, is a document of the highest historical importance, and fixes beyond the possibility of doubt on the French Government the initiative in the designed intervention, though the Yellow Books also are not altogether silent. These, though most defective in their information, do not hide Gambetta's initial responsibility. I heard at the time, and I believe that the form of joint intervention he designed for Egypt was that England should demonstrate with a fleet at Alexandria while France should land troops. Had that come to pass we cannot doubt that French influence would now be supreme in Egypt. It was only frustrated that winter by the accident of Gambetta's unlooked-for fall from power by an adverse vote on some domestic matter in the Chamber at the end of the month, for Gladstone at that time was far too averse from violent measures to have sent an English fleet with a French army, and the landing of troops would have been certainly needed.
There is more than one moral to be drawn from this historic episode, and the most instructive is, perhaps, the fact that neither of the two Ministers, with all their cleverness and in spite of their apparent success each in his own scheme, really effected his purpose. Gambetta and Granville in the first weeks of January doubtless plumed themselves on having gained an important object and strengthened the friendly link between their two Governments by a common agreement. Gambetta had got his note, Granville his treaty. But neither rogue was really able to bring home his booty. Gambetta, though he exerted all his influence with the Chamber to get the Commercial Treaty with England renewed, failed to obtain a majority and the treaty lapsed, and with it the Liberal argument thatFree Trade was not isolating England. On the other hand, though he had got Granville unwillingly to sign the Note, which he intended to use for the glory of France, Gambetta found that he had forged a weapon which he could not himself wield and which within six months passed into his rival's hand, while the friendly arrangement proved almost as soon as it was come to, to be the destruction of all cordial feeling between the two nations for close on a generation. Personally, in the disappointment of the two intriguers and the rival interest of the two nations, I am able to hold a detached attitude. What seems to me tragic in the matter is that for the sake of their paltry ambitions and paltrier greeds a great national hope was wrecked, and the cause of reform for a great religion postponed for many years. The opportunity of good thrown away by the two statesmen between them can hardly recur again in another half century.
The effect of Gambetta's menace to the National Party was disastrous at Cairo to the cause of peace. I was with Malet soon after the note arrived, and he gave it me to read and asked me what I thought of it. I said: "They will take it as a declaration of war." He answered: "It is not meant in a hostile sense," and explained to me how it might be interpreted in a way favourable to the National hopes. He asked me to go to the Kasr el Nil and persuade Arabi, who had just been made Under-Secretary of War, to accept it thus, authorizing me to say, "that the meaning of the Note as understood by the British Government was that the English Government would not permit any interference of the Sultan with Egypt, and would also not allow the Khedive to go back from his promises or molest the Parliament." He also told me, though he did not authorize me to repeat this on his authority, that he hoped to get leave to add to the Note a written explanation in the sense just given. I know that he telegraphed repeatedly for some such permission, and that he wrote strongly condemning the note as impolitic and dangerous. Not a word, however, of these important protests and requests is to be found in the Blue Books, though the Blue Books show that Lord Granville must have paid attention to them to the extent of expressing himself willing to give some such explanation of the Note but being prevented from doing so by Gambetta. Sinkiewicz seemsalso to have asked his Government to be allowed to explain the Note, but was forbidden. Sir Auckland Colvin, too, condemned the Note in conversation with me quite as strongly as Malet had done.
I went accordingly to the Kasr el Nil about noon on the 9th (the text of the Note had reached us on the 8th) and found Arabi alone in his official room. For the first and only time I have seen him so, he was angry. His face was like a thundercloud, and there was a peculiar gleam in his eye. He had seen the text of the Note though it had not been published—indeed, it had only as yet been telegraphed—and I asked him how he understood it. "Tell me, rather," he said, "how you understand it." I then delivered my message. He said: "Sir Edward Malet must really think us children who do not know the meaning of words." "In the first place," he said, "it is the language of menace. There is no clerk in this office who would use such words with such a meaning." He alluded to the reference to the Notables made in the first paragraph of the Note. "That," he said, "is a menace to our liberties." Next, the declaration that French and English policy were one meant that, as France had invaded Tunis, so England would invade Egypt. "Let them come," he said, "every man and child in Egypt will fight them. It is contrary to our principles to strike the first blow, but we shall know how to return it." Lastly, as to the guarantee of Tewfik Pasha's throne. "The throne," he said, "if there is one, is the Sultan's. The Khedive needs no foreign guarantees. You may tell me what you will, but I know the meaning of words better than Mr. Malet does." In truth, Malet's explanation was nonsense, and I felt a fool before Arabi and ashamed of having made myself the bearer of such rubbish. But I assured him I had delivered the message as Sir Edward had given it me. "He asks you to believe it," I said, "and I ask you to believe him." At leaving he softened, took me by the arm to lead me down and invited me still to come as before to his house. I said: "I shall only come back when I have better news for you," by which I intended to hint at a possible explanation of the Note such as Malet had telegraphed for permission to give. None however came. Nor did I see Arabi again till more than three weeks later, when a letter from Mr. Gladstone reached mewhich I interpreted in a more hopeful sense and which caused us great rejoicing.
On returning to the Residency, Malet asked me how I had fared. "They are irreconcilable now," I answered. "The Note has thrown them into the arms of the Sultan." Such indeed was the effect, and not with the soldiers alone, but as soon as the Note was published with all sections of the National Party, even with the Khedive. Gambetta, if he had expected to strengthen Tewfik's hands, had missed his mark entirely. The timid Khedive was only frightened, and the Nationalists, instead of being frightened, were enraged. The Egyptians for the first time found themselves quite united. Sheykh Mohammed Abdu and the cautious Azhar reformers from that point threw in their lot wholly with the advanced party. All, even the Circassians, resented the threat of foreign intervention, and on the other hand the most anti-Turkish of the Nationalists, such as my friend Hajrasi, saw that Arabi had been right in secretly leaning upon the Sultan. Arabi thus gained immensely in popularity and respect, and for many days after this I hardly heard anything from my Egyptian friends but the language of Pan-Islamism. It was a Roustan[8]policy over again, they said.
I did my best to smooth down matters with them till the explanation should arrive which Malet had promised us; but I found my efforts useless. It was an alarming three weeks for us all, from the delivery of the Note till Gambetta's fall. News came that a French force was being assembled for embarkation at Toulon, and that was the form of intervention generally expected. Indeed, I think it is not too much to say that Gambetta's resignation on 31st January alone saved Egypt from the misfortune, even greater perhaps than what afterwards befell her, of a French invasion avowedly anti-Mohammedan and in purely European interests.
FOOTNOTES:[7]Sir William Gregory, who saw Arabi about the same date as I did, has recorded in the "Times" very similar language as used by him.[8]Roustan was the French diplomatist at Tunis who had engineered the French designs on the Regency.
[7]Sir William Gregory, who saw Arabi about the same date as I did, has recorded in the "Times" very similar language as used by him.
[7]Sir William Gregory, who saw Arabi about the same date as I did, has recorded in the "Times" very similar language as used by him.
[8]Roustan was the French diplomatist at Tunis who had engineered the French designs on the Regency.
[8]Roustan was the French diplomatist at Tunis who had engineered the French designs on the Regency.
The political crisis at Cairo, by the middle of January, was evidently approaching fast. Indeed it had become inevitable. The publication of the Joint Note happened to coincide with the drafting of the newLeyhaor Organic Law, which was to define the power of the Representative Chamber in the promised Parliament. In regard to this, the Financial Controllers had been insisting with the Ministry that the power they had been exercising for the last two years of drawing up the yearly Budget, according to their own view of the economic requirements of the country, should remain intact, that is to say, that it should not be subject to discussion or a vote in the Chamber; and to this Sherif Pasha had agreed, and had already drafted his project of law without assigning to the Chamber any right in money matters. The majority of the delegates, however, were not unnaturally dissatisfied at this, arguing that the Foreign Financial Control, having its sole status in the country as guardian of the foreign obligations, and as the interest on the debt amounted only to one-half of the revenue, the remaining half ought to be at the disposal of the nation.
Nevertheless, there is no reason to suppose that the point would not have been conceded by them, especially as Sultan Pasha, who had been named their President, was with Sherif in considering it prudent to yield, had things remained during the month as they were at the beginning. It has been seen how readily the War Office had come to terms with the Controllers in the matter of the Army Estimates. Now, however, under the menace of the Note, the Notables were no longer in a mood of conciliation, and met Sherif's draft with a counterdraft of their own, adding a number of new articles to the Leyha, largely extending the Parliamentary powers, and subjecting the half ofthe Budget not affected to the interest of the debt to vote by the Chamber. This brought the Controllers into active conflict with them, M. de Blignières taking the lead in it and bringing Colvin into line with him. The Controllers declared it absolutely necessary that the Budget should remain whole and undivided in their hands, and denounced the counter-draft as being a project, not of a Parliament, but of a "Convention." The phrase, founded on memories of the French Revolution, was doubtless de Blignières', but it was adopted by Colvin, and pressed by him on Malet. The dispute was a serious one, and might lead to just such mischief as Malet feared, and give excuse to the French Government for the intervention it was seeking. Sherif having already committed himself to the Controllers' view, was being persuaded by them to stand firm, and the Khedive's attitude was doubtful. A quarrel between the Khedive and his Parliament on a financial question involving European bondholding interests was just such a case as the French Government—for Gambetta was still in office—might be expected to take advantage of for harm.
In this emergency Malet—and Colvin, who though he wished to get his way as Financial Controller had no mind for French intervention—joined in asking me yet once again to help them, and to make a last effort to induce the extreme party among the Notables to yield something of their pretensions, and after consultation with Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, who as usual was for prudence and conciliation, it was arranged that I should have a private conference at his house with a deputation from them, and argue the case with them, and show them the probable consequences of their resistance—namely, armed intervention. Accordingly, I got up the case of the Controllers with Colvin, and drew up with Malet the different points of the argument I was to use. These I have by me in a paper headed, "Notes of what I have to say to the Members of the Egyptian Parliament, 17th January, 1882."
According to this my instructions were to represent to the Members of the Deputation that the existing procedure respecting the Budget was an international affair, which neither Sherif nor the Parliament had any right to touch without gaining the consent of the two controlling Governments. I was to recite the history of the Control's establishment, andshow them a private Note which had been appended by Malet and Monge (the French Consul-General), 15th November, 1879, to the Decree instituting it. I was to invite the members to consider whether an alteration in the form of determining the Budget was not an international matter, and, as such, outside the sphere of their action. They had admitted that international matters must be left untouched by them. The control of the Budget was an international matter. Therefore it should be left untouched by them. I was, however, authorized by Colvin to say that personally he had no objection to a slight modification of the present arrangement, such as should give the Parliament a consultative voice which might later become a right of voting. Should they accept such a compromise, Malet would represent the matter favourably to his Government, though he had no authority to promise its acceptance by France or England. All other differences with Sherif they must settle with him themselves, etc., etc.
On this basis, with Sabunji's help and Mohammed Abdu's, I argued the case thoroughly with them, and convinced myself that there was no possibility of their yielding. They agreed, indeed, to modify three or four of the articles which the Controllers had principally objected to as giving the Chamber powers of a "Convention," and the amendments I proposed in these were in fact incorporated later in the published Leyha. But on the Article of the Budget they were quite obdurate, notwithstanding the support Sheykh Mohammed Abdu gave me. They would not yield a line of it, and I returned crestfallen to report my failure, nor did I again undertake any mission of mediation between Malet and the Nationalists. I had done my best to help him to a peaceful solution of his difficulties, but our points of view from this time forth became too divergent for me any longer to be able to work with him. Although I had done my very best to persuade the Notables to give way—for I was then firmly convinced that they were menaced with intervention—I could not help in my inner mind agreeing with them in their claim of controlling the free half of the Budget as a sound one, if Parliamentary Government was to be a reality for them, not a sham. Malet's despatches of the time show that they were all of one mind on this point, and even Sultan Pasha, who was a timid man and easily frightened, declared roundly that Sherif'sdraft was "like a drum; it made a great sound but was hollow inside." As between Sherif and the Notables in the quarrel which followed, my anti-Turkish sympathies put me on their side rather than on his. At Malet's suggestion I had a little before called on Sherif and had discussed the matter with him, and had been unfavourably impressed.
Sherif was a Europeanized Turk of good breeding and excellent manners, but with all that arrogant contempt of the fellahin which distinguished his class in Egypt. Malet had a high opinion of him because he was a good French scholar and so was easy to deal with in the ordinary diplomatic way, but to me he showed himself for this very reason in disagreeable contrast with the sincere and high-minded men who were the real backbone of the National movement, and for whom he expressed nothing but the superior scorn of a fine French gentleman. He was cheerfully convinced of his own fitness to govern them and of their incapacity. "The Egyptians," he told me, "are children and must be treated like children. I have offered them a Constitution which is good enough for them, and if they are not content with it they must do without one. It was I who created the National Party, and they will find that they cannot get on without me. These peasants want guidance." When, therefore, a fortnight later the quarrel became an open one between him and them I had no difficulty in deciding which way my sympathies lay.
I was no longer at Cairo when the news of Sherif's resignation on the 2nd of February reached me. The failure of my negotiation, just described, with the Notables, had depressed my spirits. I felt that by undertaking it I had risked much of my popularity with my European friends, and that they perhaps distrusted me for the pains I had taken to convince them against a course on which their hearts were set; and I had retired to a distance from the conflict which I could no longer control or help in to any good purpose. While living at the Hôtel du Nil during the winter I had all the time had a camp with tents and camels and attendant Arabs, pitched outside the city, to which I had occasionally gone, and now I retired to it altogether. The camp was pitched on the desert land between Koubba Palace and Matarieh, then a wholly desert region at a point now called Zeitoun, where there were the insignificant ruins of what hadonce been ashaduf, the sole sign of human habitation. Here we were completely alone, except that at the distance of a mile there was another camp, that of Prince Ahmed, outside Materieh. There was no communication then by any form of public conveyance with Cairo, and when at rare intervals we went in, we rode our camels to a point between Abbassiyeh and Faggalah where donkeys were to be hired. There was not a single house on the sands beyond Abbassiyeh to the north-east. For a moment thus I was able to forget politics and to enjoy what I have always loved best, life in the open air. I had, however, rendered a last service to my friends by writing a warm defence of the Egyptian National policy in the "Times." To this I was urged by my friend, Sir William Gregory, who had himself sent more than one powerful letter in the same sense to what was then emphatically the leading journal of Europe.
It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance a letter on any subject had in those days when published by the "Times," and the certainty there was, if it was on any political question, of its being read by the statesmen concerned and treated with full attention. Nor is it, perhaps, too much to say that Gregory's letters and mine, especially his, were largely the means of obtaining a respite for Egypt from the dangers that threatened her. As they came back to Cairo and were reproduced in Arabic by the native Press, our Egyptian friends were reassured about us and their confidence in me revived. It was at the expense, however, of Malet's goodwill. Like all diplomatists he hated publicity, and he was angry with us both because we, who had both been in the Government service, had appealed as it were over the head of the Foreign Office and his own to the Press. With the regular Press correspondents he knew how to deal, but he could not deal with us who were independent writers, or exercise the smallest censorship on our opinions. There was an end therefore to the close intimacy I had, up to that point, in spite of small disagreements, had with the Agency. This was unfortunate, as it threw Malet, who always needed to lean on some one stronger than himself, into other and less conciliatory hands.
On the 31st of January, the very day of the change of Ministry at Paris, I find a note to the effect that I went in to Cairo and saw Colvin and had a remarkable conversation withhim. This has become of great historical importance through subsequent events, for it marks the date within a few days of the change of the temper of the English Financial Control, and with it of our diplomacy towards Egyptian Nationalism, and also fixes upon Colvin, what is indeed his due, the chief responsibility of the rupture which afterwards through his contriving came about. I have already said something of Sir Auckland Colvin's character. He was a typical Anglo-Indian official, strong, self-reliant, hard, with the tradition of methods long practised in India, but which were still new to our European diplomacy, endowed with just enough sympathy with Oriental character to make use of it, without loving it, for English purposes; but cold in manner and unattractive. I had at an earlier stage of affairs taken Sheykh Mohammed Abdu to call on him, thinking to bring about arapprochement, and I had also tried to do the same with the officers. But his manner had repelled the Sheykh, and the officers had been too shy to come with me. He was sometimes astonishingly frank in speech. I remember his telling me, on one occasion, when we were talking of Eastern duplicity, that it was a mistake to suppose that in this Orientals were our masters. An Englishman who knew the game, he said, could always beat them at their own weapons, and they were mere children in deceit when it came to a contest with us.
In the present instance he was more than usually outspoken. The quarrel between the Notables and Sherif was at its acutest stage; and I asked him what he thought of the situation. He said he considered it most grave. It was evident that the Nationalists were resolved upon the fall of Sherif, and, if they succeeded, he (Colvin) would have no more to do with them. He told me he had completely changed his mind about them. He had thought them amenable to reason, but he found them quite impracticable, and he would do his best to ruin them if ever they came into office. I asked him how he proposed to do this, or stop a movement which he had so lately approved, but which had gone quite beyond his or anybody's control—how, except by that very intervention we had all along been trying to avoid. He said he had changed his mind about intervention too; that he believed it now to be necessary and inevitable, and that he would spare no pains to bring it about. I expostulated with him,urging that intervention meant only war and war meant only annexation. He said he quite understood it in that sense. The same thing had been seen over and over again in India. England would never give up the footing she had got in Egypt, and it was useless to talk about the abstract rights and wrongs of the Egyptians. These would not be considered. He repeated what he had said about ruining the National Party, and added that he had made no secret of his view. He should work for intervention and, if it must be so, for annexation. I am quite sure I am not mis-quoting this conversation in any essential feature. It was not merely half a dozen words spoken in haste, but an argument which lasted half an hour; and it affected me so strongly that I decided to warn my Egyptian friends, to whom I had pledged my word for Colvin's good feeling towards them, that they must now expect the worst of him. They answered that they knew it, as they had received information already in the same sense about him.
This conversation opened my eyes to a new danger. Only the day before I had received two letters, written the one from the Liberal, the other from the Tory camp in England, and both conveying the same warning. John Morley, in answer to a letter I had written asking his sympathy with the National cause, wrote: "Whether your schemes will come to much I am at this moment inclined to doubt. Egypt, unluckily for its people, is the battlefield of European rivalries; and an honest settlement in the interests of its population will be prevented to suit the convenience of France. I don't see my way out of it. It is that curse of the world,la haute politique, which will spoil everything." Lytton also had written: "That small portion of the British public which thinks at all of foreign affairs is much pre-occupied and disturbed in mind by the false position into which we are drifting in Egypt, and almost too frightened to speak loudly on the subject. It seems to me, however, that their ideas are very hazy. In my own mind there is no doubt that this is only the first fruits of a radically wrong policy which has lost us the co-operation of Germany and Austria, and placed us practically at the mercy of France, a power with which we can never have any sound or safe alliance." Both letters had been written before the fall of Gambetta, and here I seemed to hear an echo of their words, especially Morley's words, "la haute politique,"from the man who had it most in his power to spoil an honest settlement, and that to suit the convenience, not of France merely, but of England. I was very much alarmed. I have often regretted my last words to Colvin on this occasion. "I defy you," I said, "to bring about English intervention or annexation." I regret it because I think it added a personal as well as a political stimulus to his subsequent action. It had become a trial of strength between us.
Two days later, 2nd February, Sherif Pasha, finding he could not bend the National Delegates to his will, and under the influence, I make little doubt, of Colvin's threat of intervention, resigned office, and was succeeded, at the choice of the Delegates, by Mahmud Pasha Sami as Prime Minister, with Arabi as Minister of War, a thoroughgoing Nationalist combination at which all Egypt rejoiced.[9]I heard the news at my retreat in the desert with mixed feelings of jubilation and anxiety, an anxiety which was only relieved when on the 27th I received an answer from Mr. Gladstone to my letter of six weeks before enclosing to him the National program. The long delay in replying was doubtless due to the embarrassment and perplexity as to a policy which Lord Granville's deal with Gambetta had involved him in. Gambetta's providential fall, however, had now to a large extent freed our Government's hands, and a passage was being inserted in the Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament which conveyed something like an expression of sympathy with the National Egyptian hopes. This, Mr. Gladstone sent me later, and his letter concluded with the following reassuring words: "I feel quite sure," he said, "that unless there be a sad failure of good sense on one or both, or as I should say, on allsides, we shall be able to bring this question to a favourable issue. My own opinions about Egypt were set forth in the 'Nineteenth Century' a short time before we took office, and I am not aware as yet of having seen any reason to change them."[10]
The reference thus made to his article "Aggression on Egypt," was of the very highest importance, for, as already mentioned, the article was a scathing denunciation of just that forward policy of intervention and annexation which Colvin had propounded to me. Armed with this proof of Gladstone's goodwill I went back joyfully to Cairo, and was able to tell Arabi that I had not assured him of my sympathy in vain. I found him at the War Office surrounded by his friends, and in converse with the Coptic Patriarch, and with a tribe of idle sycophants as well, Levantines and Europeans, come to salute the rising sun. Among these the new Minister moved with a certain dignified superiority which became him well. He was no longer the mere colonel of a regiment, but a man sobered by the sense of public responsibility, a fellah still, and still a patriot, but also with the manner of a statesman. He took me aside, and I showed him Gladstone's letter, and we rejoiced over it together as a message of good omen.
The first fruits of Colvin's hostility, nevertheless, we had not long to wait for. Who precisely was the originator of the lie I do not know, it was probably the Khedive, whose malicious jealousy was already at work against his Ministers, but a false report was telegraphed by Reuter to Europe that the action taken by the Notables against Sherif was due to military intimidation. A story was related and was repeated at some length in the "Times" to the effect that Sultan Pasha, the president of the Chamber, had only yielded to personal menace, and that Arabi had drawn his sword in his presence, and had threatened to make the old man's children fatherless. It was a foolish tale, for Sultan happened to be without offspring, and at Cairo it was laughed at by all who knew the truth, and how close an intimacy there was between the two, but it was sufficient as a weapon to "ruin the Nationalists," and easily passed the censorship of the Agency, being reproduced even in Malet's despatches of the day, as was a similar tale, which had also been telegraphed,that the Khedive's acceptance of Sherif's resignation had been extorted under a like pressure.
Absurd, however, as the tale was, Sultan was offended by it, and, as I was now generally known to the Deputies as their friend, he begged me to call on him and convey to Malet his emphatic denial of the whole story. I consequently went to Sultan's house, where he had assembled a large party of Deputies and other high personages, among whom were the Grand Mufti el Abbasi, Abd el Salaam Bey Mouelhy, Ahmed Bey Siouffi, Ahmed Effendi, Mahmud, Rahman Effendi, Hamadi, and El Shedid Butros, a leading Coptic deputy. All these, with Sultan, absolutely denied and repudiated the idea that they had acted under any kind of pressure, and Sultan spoke with indignation of the absurdity of the tale as regarded himself. "Ahmed Arabi," he said, "is as a son to me, and knows what is due to me and due to himself. His place is at the War Office, mine with the Parliament. It is of me that he would ask advice rather than venture to give me any on my own concerns, and as to his drawing his sword in my presence he could only do so if I were attacked by enemies. These are stories which no one who knows us both could for an instant believe, and they are absolutely false. You may take it for certain that the least of the members present who represent the people are better judges of their wants than the greatest of the soldiers. We respect Ahmed Arabi because we know him to be a patriot and a man of political intelligence, not because he is a soldier." These words of Sultan Pasha's are quoted from a memorandum I made of them at the time. The old man also spoke bitterly of Malet for encouraging the newsmongers, and begged me to tell him the facts, and also to telegraph them to Mr. Gladstone, and make them known in the London press. This I did to the best of my ability. I sent a full account of it to the "Times," though, if I remember rightly, it was, for some reason, never printed, and I telegraphed in the same sense to Mr. Gladstone, and also wrote him a long letter giving my view of the general situation.
To Malet I went straight from Sultan's house and expostulated with him warmly. But he insisted on the truth of his tale, which he had got, he told me first, from Sultan himself, and then not from Sultan but at second hand from "some one onwhom he could depend," and, when I pressed him further as to who this was, lost temper and said I had no right to cross-question him. This was my last talk with him on any political matter. Malet's new attitude proved to me that he, like Colvin, had gone over to the enemy's camp, and was now no longer to be trusted. I saw that the situation was a very dangerous one, for between them they had the Press and the Foreign Office wholly in their hands, and though I possessed at home the Prime Minister's ear and a certain publicity for my views in the "Times," I felt that I was fighting against them at an extreme disadvantage. I consequently decided to delay no longer my return to England, where I could do more for the Egyptian interests than I could at Cairo, by word of mouth and by a personal appeal to Gladstone. Before going, however, I had numerous conversations with the leading Deputies and with my friends at the Azhar, to whom I communicated my design, of which they all approved; and I arranged with Sir William Gregory that after my departure he should continue to defend the National cause, in which he was as enthusiastic as I was, in the "Times" and by letter with his friends in England. My thought was to return to Egypt, perhaps, in a few weeks' time, and take part in any further developments that might arise.
I paid a last visit to Arabi the morning of the day I left for England, 27th February. I had been little more than three months in Egypt, and it seemed to me like a lifetime, so absorbing had been the interests they had brought me. I looked upon Egypt already like a secondpatria, and intended to throw in my lot with the Egyptians as if they were my own countrymen. I was estranged from those of my countrymen in blood, except Gregory, who formed the then little English colony at Cairo. Following Colvin's lead they had all gone over like sheep to ideas of intervention, for be it noted that it was now no longer French intervention that was talked of, but English, and at once in English eyes the immorality of aggression had been transformed into a duty. What had been abominable when threatened by Gambetta now appealed to them as just and desirable and patriotic when proposed by Granville. Similarly the new Prime Minister at Paris, M. de Freycinet, having reversed his predecessor's policy of intervention, the French colony were for peace with the Nationalists, all except de Blignières and those who hadofficial posts they feared might be suppressed in the new reign of National economy.
Colvin and de Blignières were industrious in spreading trepidation among the holders of sinecure offices, and it was amusing to note how suddenly and completely the poet Lord Houghton abandoned his first attitude of romantic sympathy with Egyptian liberty when his son-in-law, Fitzgerald, who had one of these sinecures, represented to him that his daily bread was thereby threatened. It was well known, as part of the Nationalist program, that it was intended to reduce the expenditure on unnecessary salaries and to suppress the duplicated posts. This was ascribed by Colvin not to its true cause, a very legitimate economy, but to "fanaticism," a convenient word which began now to be freely used in describing the National movement. What, however, I think more than anything else was condemned just then by the little group of English officials was the "monstrous" determination which the Egyptian Chamber was said to have come to, if it could secure the right of voting the Budget, to cut down the subvention of £1,000 a year paid to Reuter's Agency. Without this it was felt that it would be impossible any longer to know at Cairo the odds on the Oxford and Cambridge boat race or even on the Derby or Grand Prix. There was a dark hint, too, thrown out that the charge of £9,000 a year then figuring in the Budget as a grant in aid to the European Opera House might be reduced, and on this astounding proof of "fanaticism," Fitzgerald, as a patron of the ballet, was especially insistent. These things, with others almost as trifling, were made a serious crime to the Notables and to the new Ministry, who were countenancing the reductions. I used to hear the tale of their complaints from Gregory, who was now in much closer touch with them than I any longer was. It was in answer to their threats of intervention, which were beginning to have an effect on the Stock Exchange in the lowered price of Egyptian Bonds and of property generally in Egypt, that I at this time resolved to give proof of my confidence in the national fortunes by buying a small estate for my future residence in the neighbourhood of Cairo, and the result was my purchase of Eheykh Obeyd Garden, a property of some forty acres, between Merj and Materieh.
It will be interesting to Egyptian readers to know what theprices of land in that neighbourhood then were. There was, as I have said, at that time not a single house built on the desert strip between Abbassiyeh and Kafr el Jamus, and the Government was willing to sell it to anybody who would buy it at the rate of a few piastres an acre. I thought at one moment of establishing myself on the land where my camp of the moment stood, and I made inquiry of my friend Rogers Bey, who was in the Land Department of the Ministry of Finance, and I find among my papers the draft of an application I sent in for a hundred acres, where now the suburb of Zeitoun stands, for which, at his suggestion, I offered fifteen piastres (three shillings) an acre. The same land is worth to-day, 1904, at least two hundred pounds an acre, ground value. But while I was in negotiation for it I chanced to hear that Sheykh Obeyd Garden was in the market, and I purchased it, so to say, "over the counter" from the Domains' Commission for £1,500. It was then the best fruit garden in Egypt, enclosed in a wall with a bountiful supply of water, and contained, on estimation, 70,000 fruit trees, all in splendid order.
The history of the garden is worth recording. It was a piece of good land standing on the desert edge, belonging in the early part of the nineteenth century to the Imam of Ibrahim Pasha's army during the campaign of Arabia but the Imam falling into indigent circumstances, the Pasha bought it of him, enclosed thirty-three acres with a wall, dug the sakiehs, and laid it out as it now is some time in the early thirties. The fruit trees with which it was planted were brought in part from Taif in the Hejaz, in part from Syria. Ibrahim had a passion to make it the best of its kind, and in his time and the time of his nephew, Mustafa, to whom it descended, the fruit from it brought in a yearly revenue of £800, the labour being all done bycorvéeof the fellahin of the neighbouring villages. The pomegranates of the garden were so large that it was a tradition with the gardeners there that thirty went to a camel load, and that they were sent yearly to Constantinople as a present to the Sultan. What is certain is that in the time of Ibrahim's grandson, Tewfik, when in his father's reign he was living in retirement at Koubba, the ladies of his household used to be carried there every Friday during the spring season to spend the day.In the ruin of Ismaïl's fortunes it came, in 1879, to the Domains Commissioners, and was one of the smaller properties scheduled by them for sale, and so it chanced into the market. On our way to Syria the year before we had camped one night outside its walls and had wondered at its beauty with the apricot trees in full flower. No sooner did I hear of it as a possible acquisition than I abandoned all other schemes of purchase; and in one of its shady walks I am writing my memoirs to-day.
But to return to my farewell visit to Arabi. On this occasion we talked all the questions over which were being debated at the moment by the Nationalists with their plans of reforms and their hopes and fears at home and abroad. The few weeks that Arabi had been in high office had matured him and strengthened him, and he discussed things with me with all possible sobriety of thought and language. He assured me emphatically that he and his fellow Ministers were most anxious to come to a friendly understanding with the English Government on all matters in dispute between them and the Agency at Cairo; and he begged me to convey to Mr. Gladstone a formal message to that effect. He complained, however, strongly of Malet and Colvin, whose recent action and the part they were taking in the campaign of misrepresentation being organized in the English Press proved their hostility. "There will never be peace at Cairo," he said, "as long as we have only these to deal with, for we know that they are working mischief against us in secret, if not openly. We shall stand aloof from both of them. But we do not on that account wish to quarrel with England. Let Mr. Gladstone send us whom he will to treat with us, and we will receive him with open arms." He also talked at great length of the practical reforms Mahmud Sami and the other Ministers were contemplating, most of which have since been included in the list of benefits conferred on the country under British occupation, and which Lord Cromer has adopted as his own. Such were the abolition of thecorvéeswhich the rich Turkish pashas levied on the villagers, their monopoly of the water at the time of the high Nile, the protection of the fellahin from the Greek usurers, who had them in their clutches through the iniquitous abuses of the International Tribunals,and even that latest remedy for agriculture distress on which Lord Cromer specially prides himself, an agricultural Bank under Government direction.
Other questions discussed were the reform of Justice, then fearfully corrupt, the education of men and also of women, the mode of election to be adopted for the new Parliament, and the question of slavery. On this point he dwelt at some length, because the European officials of the department concerned in its suppression were beginning, like the other foreign officials, to fear that in the new National scheme of economy their salaries would be reduced, and were pretending that the Mohammedan revival would mean a revival of the slave trade. Arabi showed me how little ground there was for this pretence, that the only persons in Egypt who still had slaves or wished to have slaves were just the Khedivial princes and rich pashas, against whose tyranny the fellah movement was directed, that according to the principles of the Liberal reform all men were to be henceforth equal, without distinction of race, or colour, or religion. The last thing compatible with these was the revival of slavery. Lastly, as to the necessity of military preparation for a possible war, which as a soldier and war minister he had uppermost in his mind, he spoke plainly and with energy. The National Government would not disarm or relax its precautions until the true Constitutionalrégimewas firmly established and acknowledged by Europe. He hoped not to exceed the War Estimates agreed on with Colvin, or to be obliged to increase the number of men recruited beyond the 18,000 allowed by the Firmans. If, however, the menace of armed intervention were long continued they would adopt the Prussian system of short service, and so gradually bring a larger force as a reserve under arms. He asked my opinion of the chances of a conflict, and I told him plainly that from what Colvin had boasted to me of his intention to bring it about, and from the means of Press agitation he had already adopted with that end, I considered the danger a real one, and that it was to neutralize, as far as I could, the campaign of lies which had begun that I was going to England. My business there would be to preach the cause of peace and goodwill. At the same time I could not advise him to do otherwise than stand firmly to his ground. The best chance of peace was to be prepared for defence. Thegreat enemies of Egypt were not so much the European governments as the European financiers, and these would think twice about urging an armed attack if they knew that they could not do so without the risk of ruining their own interests in Egypt by a long and costly war. An armed nation resolute and ready to defend its rights was seldom molested. I remember quoting to him Byron's lines, "Trust not for freedom to the Franks," of which he greatly approved; and these, I think, were our last words. I promised him that if it came to the worst I would return and throw in my lot with theirs in a campaign for independence.